Sunnydale, November 1st 1997
Andrew Wells parked his dad's car close by Ethan's store, late on Saturday night. He had heard what had happened the previous evening from his brother Tucker, and figured he wanted to get in on the action himself; namely, turn into his Halloween costume, like Tucker had.
{ Not sure how it works, but I want to be Obi-wan Kenobi for the night, } the nerd thought to himself. { Or someone like that, anyway. Depends on what I can find… }
He broke into the store and looked around. The whole place looked kinda bare, with empty shelves and a couple of mannequins. Discouraged, Andrew searched everywhere...
And eventually, he found a Mr. Freeze costume in a dust-covered box hidden in the back. "Whoa, totally cool!" He left the store with the costume, putting it inside his car and then heading off home.
Naturally, Andrew's efforts to become Mr. Freeze failed at first. For one thing, he was no mage, even though (like Tucker) he discovered he had a talent for summoning demons with a magic flute. He couldn't petition Janus for help like Ethan Rayne could, either. But refusing to give up, Andrew searched and searched for a way to become Mr. Freeze –
And eventually, thanks to a scumbag magic dealer named Rack, he succeeded…
Sunnydale High School, January 17th 1998
Xander met up with Buffy and Willow in the main corridor. "Hey, gals, what's the what?"
"Need to talk to Giles about the whole Judge thing," Buffy replied.
"Oh yeah, that -" Xander started to say, as they headed towards their home room. But at that moment, Andrew – or more accurately, Mr. Freeze – entered the scene.
Xander blinked; the new arrival had blue skin, and was also wearing red lens goggles. Thanks to his geek cred, Xander easily recognized how the bad guy was holding a freeze gun in his hand. { Oh, crap - }
"Halloween was months ago, dude!" some random sophomore laughed derisively.
"Ice off, 'dude'!" Andrew replied with an accent like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, before he fired his freeze gun at his target. A beam of ice encompassed the guy, who instantly ended up trapped in a block of ice!
Grinning madly, Mr. Freeze blasted anyone else in his way. Even Principal Snyder! The teenage trio split up as screams and running students filled the school corridor; Buffy tried to get to Mr. Freeze, while Willow and Xander went looking for Giles. They ran into Cordelia along the way...
"What the hell's going on?" the Chase girl demanded, shoving people out of her way.
"Some guy is going totally freeze-happy with his ice gun!" the Willow-bot said in a panicked voice.
"Giles – library – now!" Xander barked out, grabbing Cordelia by the wrist and dragging her along with him. As they headed towards Scooby Central, in the rush and the crowd, they lost Willow – who ran into Giles, while Xander and Cordelia kept going. Unfortunately, at practically the same moment, Oz got frozen by Mr. Freeze!
Buffy spotted the frozen Oz-bot. "Don't worry, Oz, I'll find something to unfreeze you with – I hope..."
Down the hallway, the crush and the rush forced Xander and Cordelia to take cover. Harris spotted a janitor's closet, quickly opening it up and dragging Cordelia and himself inside. After closing the closet door, he heard a loud click. "Ah, damn it!"
Cordelia didn't like the sound of that. "Out of my way, Doofus!" She shoved him aside and tried the door handle, but it was no use; they were locked in. "You IDIOT!"
"Hey, it's not my fault," Xander retorted, this was the last conversation he wanted to be stuck in. "Besides, would you rather be trapped in here, or get trampled to death out there?"
"Huh. Okay, point. And just typical, you know – some nut job has gone postal on the school," Cordelia sniffed disdainfully. Xander just shrugged and rolled his eyes. She then asked, "Any idea who it is?"
"I *think* it's some sophomore I've seen around somewhere, but I don't know his name. And how the *hell* did that guy pull off a Halloween gig, and become Mr. Freeze?" Xander demanded.
"Why ask me?" Cordelia replied bitingly. "I *avoid* the weirdness, remember? So now what, Dweeb?" she asked him, she wasn't happy being locked in a smelly broom closet of all places.
"I dunno. Wanna make out or something?" Xander said with a grin.
Cordelia smacked him on the arm. "Be serious!"
"Okay, fine. Let's talk," Xander shrugged.
"About what?"
"I dunno. Uh, Buffy's birthday is coming up in a few days, we were thinking of throwing her a party – assuming we survive until then," Xander grimaced. "You wanna come?"
Cordelia blinked. "Are you asking me out on a date?" Off Xander's disbelieving look, she sighed and said, "Fine, my mistake. And why not – okay, I'll buy her a gift and everything!"
"Cool. And please, don't bring some idiot jock along as a date – this little shindig is pretty much Scooby Gang members only," Xander warned her. "Comprendez?"
"Comprendez? What are you now, world traveller or something?" Cordy asked heatedly. Who did this guy think he was, giving her orders like that? Not to mention, treating her like she was an official member of the school's leper colony?
"Better that, than the being the school bike," Xander said equally heatedly, starting to get angry.
"Asshole."
"Trump!"
"Moron!"
"Shrew!"
"Idiot!"
"Hussy!"
"Bastard!"
"No way. I was at my parents' wedding."
"Uggh!"
They began to fight, pulling each other's hair – before, and of all the weirdest things, they started to make out instead!
{ What am I doing? } Cordelia thought dazedly to herself, her lips firmly socketed against Xander's. { Why the hell am I *kissing* this dork? }
They kissed feverishly, passionately and wantonly before she eventually shoved him away. "How *dare* you kiss me, you loser?!"
Xander replied, "Uh, not sure. Because you're the most beautiful girl in Sunnydale, maybe?"
"Grrrrr..." Her hormones almost turning her brain into mush, Cordelia raised her arm to slap him...
...before she yanked his head down and plastered herself against him, her tongue working frantically against his.
Not far away, Amy Madison was using her magic to discreetly unfreeze people – including Principal Snyder. It was pretty easy for her. She also wiped everyone's minds of her help, so they wouldn't find out that she was a novice witch. { The less people who know, the better! } Amy thought to herself.
Elsewhere, Buffy wasn't having any luck unfreezing Oz. Willow and Giles showed up, with the majority of the students having disappeared by now, and the Willow-bot cried out, "Buffy, are you alright? Oh no, Oz!"
"Good lord, w-what happened to him?!" Giles demanded, gesturing at Oz – he hadn't seen anything like this before.
"Can you unfreeze him, Giles?" the worried-sounding Willow-bot wanted to know.
"You guys help Oz; I'll go stop Mr. Freeze, before he turns the whole school into the next Ice Age!" Buffy took off.
Elsewhere, the possessed version of Andrew laughed sinisterly as he fired the freeze gun at another person. "Today, hell freezes over!"
Kendra spotted Mr. Freeze down the hallway. "Whoever you are, ya better stop what yer doin' right now!" she warned him.
Mr. Freeze instantly turned his freeze gun on her. But Kendra grabbed a book off the floor and threw it at him, with superhuman speed and strength. The book knocked the freeze gun from his hand, before it landed on the floor.
"You will pay for that!" Mr. Freeze told the Slayer in an ice-cold voice.
Responding to the challenge, Kendra ran at him and slammed Mr. Freeze into a nearby locker. Amy, who was running through the hall, saw the Jamaican girl start to punch the hell out of her target.
{ So Andrew Wells was the one turning everyone into blocks of ice, } Amy sighed to herself. She knew he would be no match for the Slayer. Heck, Kendra almost broke his helmet! A few painful moments later, the ice-cold figure lay on the floor, unconscious and totally beaten up. Luckily, the freeze suit stopped the powerful punches from Kendra from being lethal ones.
"I think he's had enough." Amy went to check on Mr. Freeze, who was down and out for the count.
"Den keep an eye on him, until I come back..." Kendra picked up the freeze gun off the floor. { I better give this to Mr. Giles. } She left, heading to the library.
By this point, Giles had summoned Ms. Calendar, who worked some magic on unfreezing Oz. Once unfrozen, the Oz-bot fell to its knees, acting cold and freezing. Luckily for the Oz-bot and Willow-bot, Jareth's robots couldn't be damaged by being frozen in ice. Still, Willow hugged Oz, acting like she was trying to warm up her boyfriend – channeling the real Willow's feelings from her prison, far away at DELOS.
It worked, too – the Willow-bot was totally convincing!
A short while later, Buffy stopped by the janitor's closet on her way to class, as she'd heard some strange noises coming from the other side of the door. "Is anyone in there?" the Slayer called out.
"Yeah! It's us, Buff! Cordelia and I are locked in – open up!" Xander's voice called out from behind the door.
Looking amazed, Buffy opened the closet door, before both Xander and Cordelia rushed out of there. "What the-?"
"Freedom at last. Thanks, Buffy!" Harris said with a smile, before he explained why they'd ended up trapped in there.
Cordelia just sighed and rolled her eyes. { I can't believe I spent all that time in that yucky closet, trapped alone with that lamer! Still – I guess it wasn't all bad, Xander was a pretty decent kisser if nothing else. Oh my God, do I actually want to do that with him *again*? Oh, no, I do! Somebody, help! I've gone completely nuts! }
Not far away, Amy helped Andrew get to his feet. "Andrew, are you alright?"
"I guess. Ugh...that Rack guy didn't warn me it would be like this!" Andrew said muzzily, the effects of the temporary costume possession having worn off by now.
"What are you talking about?" Amy demanded, before Andrew confessed what he'd done. "You let yourself get *possessed*? Are you nuts?" she then demanded.
"Uh, no; I was just sick and tired of everyone at school picking on me," Andrew told her simply.
Amy just shook her head, before grabbing Andrew by the wrist and they headed towards the library. Moments later, everyone else arrived at the library. Willow gave Oz a blanket, and he thanked her for it. Followed by a quick kiss between the two machines, which grew more heated as time went on...
Amy and Andrew then burst in through the double doors. Buffy and Kendra took up attack stances, but quickly relaxed when they took in the situation, how Andrew was looking pathetic and defeated. Giles locked up the freeze gun to be dealt with later, as Amy started to talk – telling everyone what had happened.
Andrew added in his piece about what happened after he put on the Mr. Freeze costume. "I, I didn't want to hurt anyone – I was just tired of being bullied all the time, y'know? So I stole a Halloween costume from that abandoned Ethan's costume store. And, and I went to this magician named Rack to make it the real deal. Next thing I know, I'm freezing people at the school..." He looked down at his hands in shame.
"Consider yourself lucky Kendra didn't kill you," Buffy spat at him, "you moron! What the hell were you thinking?"
"I heard some people were permanently changed last Halloween. So, will Andrew die if he takes off the suit?" Amy asked, ignoring that.
"If he's like Mr. Freeze now, I'd say so," Xander said, wondering why there couldn't be just one boring day at school. Although, come to think of it, boring was overrated – hey, he'd just made out with Cordelia! And Queen C hadn't killed him for it? Best day ever, so far this year!
"Can de effects of de possession be reversed, Mr. Giles?" Kendra asked curiously.
"Err, I'm not sure. Chaos magic, not really my area of expertise..." Giles cleaned his glasses, deep in thought.
"So, I might have to wear this costume for the rest of my life?" Andrew didn't like the sound of that.
"Who cares if you do? Go ask your friend Rack for answers, or help," Buffy said angrily, pushing the protesting Andrew towards the doors. "We've got our own problems right now!"
Westworld facility, summer of 1999
Over at DELOS, Jareth was experimenting with the Ted Buchanan-bot parts and seeing how well they worked with his upgrades. { Hmmm... }
Ethan walked into Jareth's lab. "What do you plan on doing with the parts from that robot, Jareth?"
"I'm planning to make an android that would lead my army, Ethan," the demon laughed, briefly. "Oh, I almost forgot – look at this..."
"Some poor fool who's wearing one of my old chaos-spelled costumes?" Ethan grinned, as the wall opened up and the frozen figure of Andrew Wells appeared, still wearing the Mr. Freeze suit.
"Yes, I've had him on ice here for a while now." Jareth suddenly wondered whether he could use a new pawn in his plan…
Sunnydale High School library, January 17th 1998
After Andrew had left in ignominious shame, Amy wasn't sure if she should tell the gang that she was a witch. She didn't really know many of them well enough, and they weren't exactly friends for that matter. Putting that aside, though, she listened as the Scooby Gang discussed what to do about the Judge – before Kendra mentioned the dream she'd had yet again, the one she'd been having for nearly two months now. The one where a vampire read a book, and a *huge* demon erupted out of the Hellmouth…
"All we have to do is find this book before this vampire does, right?" Oz asked, finally saying something.
"It would seem so," Kendra replied, kinda antsy since she didn't done much slaying this week.
"We should focus on finding the book, as well as the Judge's parts," Jenny Calendar finally spoke up. So they all started making plans...
Over at the old mansion, Count Orlok wasn't sure what to do; a human soul, or a chaos-spelled Halloween costume, in order to fix the Gem? { Haven't had much luck finding either, } he thought to himself in annoyance. { Fine, a costume it is, then; souls are a tricky business, after all. }
Later that night, Count Orlok went to Ethan's store to look around. But that was pointless; by this point, the store was kinda rundown with a lot of dust and spiderwebs here and there. Besides… he had checked here before, and more than once, since the warlock had made that offer. So the former Billy Fordham left the store to go see the warlock again.
Elsewhere, Buffy and Kendra went looking for the book the Jamaican Slayer had seen in her prophetic dream. The Willow and Oz robots reported the latest developments to their demon master. Xander and Cordelia enjoyed themselves necking in the back seat of her car. While Angel went to Willy's bar to see if he could get any info on where Spike and Drusilla were at, in terms of rebuilding the Judge